Ephesians 6:2-3 – “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.”  NKJV

I was out just a few days ago and heard a child demanding a particular item from his mother.  When she resisted, he sat down on the floor and threw a temper tantrum, and she soon acquiesced and gave him what he wanted.  Later that same day, I was in a restaurant, and a father told his little girl to sit down and eat her food, and she told him, quite loudly and without any trepidation, “NO, and you can’t make me.”  He let her continue what she was doing.  I will not say I was shocked, but I thought back to my childhood and my parents’ response. 

You do not want to know because I probably would not have been able to sit down for a week.  They would have busted my rear end right then and there, and virtually nobody would have thought a thing about it but would have acknowledged approval for the discipline.  I respected my parents and knew there were boundaries that I had to stay within, or there would be consequences I did not desire.  My respect for them, their enforcement of discipline (consistently), and my love for them motivated me to do what they approved of when I was with them.  I confess I broke their rules when away from them, but I “honored them” while in their presence.

I blame the parents for not enforcing consistent discipline, society for adopting the ideology that discipline (biblical) cannot be used, and the children for being disrespectful.  My children will tell you that we did not allow them to pull the stunts mentioned above. 

In church, while preaching, my boys knew that if I snapped my fingers, it meant, “Stop what you are doing now.”  They may not remember how effective it was, but believe me, the consistent enforcement of discipline on that front made it an effective method of getting the desired and necessary response from them. 

I am reminded of one of the church members in one particular church telling the story of how their oldest son was acting, and the mother picked him up to take him out of the sanctuary and fully intended to give him a spanking.  As she went down the aisle, he said, where everyone could hear, “Somebody help me. This crazy woman is going to kill me.”  The entire church erupted, and she got so tickled that while she still disciplined him, she could not help but find it funny.

But, for all of us who have parents and or children, we should remember this verse and its additional benefit.  It refers to the Ten Commandments, and Paul says that “honoring your parents” carries the promise of long life on the earth.  Do I think that someone can honor their parents and die young? Of course, I do.

However, I also believe that many live long and fruitful lives based on this promise and truthful honoring of their parents.  My grandfather on my mother’s side was nine days short of being 101 when he went home to be with the Lord, and I know he honored his parents, as did his children, him, and my grandmother.  My mother lived to be 95 years of age.  I watched her honor her parents even after she was grown and with a family of her own.  It is more than just doing what they say. It is a mindset and attitude.  It is a relationship.  It is an expression of respect and love.  It carries with it a desire to please them biblically.

Disrespect is prevalent in today’s society. 

• We see disrespect in public. 
• We see it in homes. 
• We see it in schools. 
• We see it in every aspect of our society, and it goes beyond just honoring parents, but that is my focus here. 

The objective must be to get this part right, and I believe many other areas will harmonize with the biblical guidelines.  I am not suggesting that you use Proverbs 13:24 – “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him,” but it might be an excellent place to consider starting.  My dad could quote and believed an earlier verse in that chapter and practiced it.  Verse 14 – “You shall beat him with a rod and shall deliver his soul from hell.”  I am glad my parents disciplined me, and it did not make me a warped individual.  If I am warped, I did that on my own; their discipline did not cause it.

May God be with you as you go through your day!